


(just give me) one bad night

by PoeticallyIrritating



Category: The Good Fight (TV)
Genre: F/F, casual sex but like in a friendly way, me: ...interesting, me: marissa and maia have good chemistry but no romantic potential, you know how lesbians do
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-23
Updated: 2018-10-23
Packaged: 2019-08-06 05:30:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16382306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoeticallyIrritating/pseuds/PoeticallyIrritating
Summary: Marissa raises her eyebrows. “Are you flirting with me?”“Not on purpose,” Maia grumbles, chin resting on her hands. “I’m just...you know. Stupid. Gay.”“Lonely?”“Maybe.” Maia sits back, sinking into the couch cushions. “Can you be lonely when you also desperately want to be alone?”





	(just give me) one bad night

**Author's Note:**

> over the summer i got mono and missed a week and a half of work and binged both seasons of the good fight on the couch. nothing i love better than gals being pals, in bed, featuring a difficult emotional backdrop. unfortunately for my desire not to be a Tumblr Lesbian(TM), the title is in fact from one bad night by hayley kiyoko. i didn't want it to be like this.
> 
> with apologies to amy, who i'm sure would be a perfectly nice person if she had any character traits whatsoever.

Maia knows not to take it seriously when Marissa says she’s “ready for anything.” Enough girls in college fucked her around; she knows straight girls say things they don’t mean when they’ve had four cosmos and are sitting too close to a non-threatening long-haired lesbian. But she’s had her share of drinks, too, and for a second she lets herself imagine it. (Marissa would laugh in bed; she’s always delighted, delightful. Maia takes sex too seriously, like everything else, and she likes picturing Marissa giggling against her thigh, telling her to have fun with it. _It’s not a funeral, jeez,_ says imaginary Marissa. Fantasy Marissa? She can practically feel the heft of Marissa’s hip under her hands.) 

The night turns into something else, with someone else. Sometimes you just want to stop feeling like a taut string.

In the morning she wakes up sick to her stomach. Tries to vomit. Fails. 

Her phone has a text from Marissa.  _ u okay??? vodka is my arch-nemesis.  _ Followed by the puking emoji. 

Maia sends back the skull emoji.  _ suffering _

Making coffee in the kitchen, Amy asks what’s wrong. 

She wants to say,  _ What’s  _ not  _ going wrong right now? _ An easy deflection. Instead she shrugs. “A little too much to drink last night.”

Amy puts on the expression she’s acquired sometime in the last couple years, when they were growing up. (Maia didn’t notice it, the growing up, until after it happened. She’s not sure if she kept up with Amy.) The look is almost maternal, and Amy says, “Don’t you think we’re getting too old for that?” 

The  _ we  _ is Amy trying not to sound like she’s lecturing Maia, an attempt at  _ we’re in this together,  _ but it comes across as condescending. Maia’s been nurturing a flame of rage in her chest—like a pilot light, she thinks—and it flares at Amy’s calm, reasonable expression. 

“No,” she snaps. “No, I don’t think  _ we’re  _ getting too old for that.” 

“Okay-y,” says Amy, like,  _ All right, I’ll give it a rest, whatever you say.  _ One more for the list of unresolved “discussions.”

Something in Maia still wants to blow it all up. She pictures saying it.  _ I danced with someone last night, and she reached under my skirt in an Uber, and we fucked inside a frosted-glass room and I didn’t think about you at all.  _

Instead she says, “I’m tired of making the responsible choice.” 

Amy exhales. Maia can see her chest deflate. “I guess that’s fair,” she says.

If Amy would just yell at her, demand to go through her phone—give Maia one reason to say  _ I feel stifled, I don’t want this life we built together, I want out.  _ But she doesn’t. Instead she walks three blocks for a bagel and strokes Maia’s hair and gives her an aspirin.  

-

“So how was it?” Marissa asks, leaning in with her eyebrows raised.

“Oh my God.” They’re drinking wine, because of course they are, but Maia is not drunk enough to have this conversation. 

“I’m serious! If you’re not going to see her again you should at least get to use the story.” 

Marissa’s couch is covered in several crocheted blankets, apparently to hide stains. (It’s from Craigslist. Maia almost offers to buy Marissa new furniture before remembering she’s broke.)

Maia rolls her eyes. “It was...hot, okay? It was hot and it was fucked up, and I will not be doing it again.” 

“Seriously?” 

“I love Amy,” she says, and hates how it comes out: like it’s rehearsed. 

“I don’t know, dude. Maybe you’re just going through something, and you’ll get over it, or whatever. But you shouldn’t be with someone out of obligation.” Marissa swallows the last of her wine as if she didn’t just suggest that Maia destroy a five-year relationship. “Look. Don’t worry about that now. But come on, at least give me the juicy details.” 

Maia isn’t really used to friends who request juicy details, and she definitely isn’t used to straight girls treating her sex life with anything but studied disinterest or “so how do you…?” tourism. 

She turns down the tv. “Okay,” she says. “She came to say goodbye, outside. And—I kissed her, and...” She shrugs her shoulders. “We got in the car and she—God, Marissa, I can’t do this.” 

Marissa is grinning, for some ungodly reason. “You’re blushing.” 

“You’re making fun of me,” says Maia, but she’s smiling too. 

It’s the kind of moment where, if there was something between them, Marissa would brush her hair out of her face. 

She doesn’t. Instead she refills their glasses, emptying the last drop from the bottle into Maia’s. 

“You got more,” Maia complains. 

“Okay, have some of mine.” Marissa holds out her glass and Maia takes it, and for a second their fingers touch and it feels like something, or maybe nothing. After she takes a sip, Maia sets the glass on the table rather than hand it back. 

“I just wish…” 

“Wish what?”

Maia’s staring at the wall in front of her rather than look at Marissa while she formulates her words. Finally she gives up. “Honestly,” she says, “I have no idea what I want anymore.” 

Marissa snorts. 

“Stop!” Maia tosses a throw pillow at her. “I’m trying to be  _ honest.” _

“Okay, listen,” says Marissa. “Don’t take this the wrong way.”

“Promising start.”

“No, come on.” Marissa’s leaning toward her, wine having reduced her already-limited sense of personal space. “You grew up in this like, crazy privileged bubble.”

“Everyone’s favorite word these days.” 

Marissa ignores her. “You had SAT prep classes and—fuck, I don’t know, horseback riding—and your parents gave you a road map to wherever you wanted to be. Like, I’m sure lesbianism wouldn’t have been their first choice, but if you’re rich and white and cute enough, you kind of get a pass. Sorry. The point is...you never had to ask yourself what you wanted.” 

Maia sips from a wine glass—her own, this time. “That was pretty smart.” She locks eyes with Marissa. “Also insulting.” 

“Hey!” Marissa faux-pouts. “I called you cute.” 

“So now you’re leading me on?” It comes out before she can stop it, even though the combination of “gay innuendo” and “implication that the speaker is owed something sexually, even as a joke” has literally never worked in the history of being tipsy and talking to girls who are probably straight. 

Marissa raises her eyebrows. “Are you flirting with me?”

“Not on purpose,” Maia grumbles, chin resting on her hands. “I’m just...you know. Stupid. Gay.”

“Lonely?”

“Maybe.” Maia sits back, sinking into the couch cushions. “Can you be lonely when you also desperately want to be alone?” 

“Sure,” says Marissa. “Why not?”

They sit in silence for a minute. Maia reaches to turn the TV back up, but before she gets to the remote, Marissa speaks. 

“You know it’s okay, right?” 

“What’s okay?” 

“If you’re flirting with me. On purpose or otherwise.” 

Maia clears her throat. “I, uh—no, I didn’t know that was okay. Actually.”

Marissa’s eyes fix on hers in a way that’s new, sharp, surprising. “Well, it is.” 

Maia bites the inside of her cheek. She would love to say something cool, or at least kind of flirtatious, but her mouth won’t move. 

“Listen,” says Marissa, “I get that things are complicated right now. I’m just saying...they don’t always have to be.”

Maia exhales. It’s nice to imagine—Marissa, soft and laughing, unashamed. “So, what are you saying. You want to fuck me because, what, that’s what friends are for?”

Marissa snorts, brushes curls out of her face. “Sure.” 

“What, like—some kind of charity? I assumed you were…”

“Well,” says Marissa, mock-serious. “You know what happens when you assume.” She winks. “Something about asses.”

“Yeah,” says Maia. She’s only half hearing now. It’s not like she’s never slept with a friend, but...god. It’s been a long time. And everything right now is—

Marissa cuts off her train of thought with a kiss that’s like a collision, grinning exuberance converged into kinetic energy. When she gets her breath back it’s all Maia can do to match her, until she abruptly sits back. 

“This is okay, right? I don’t wanna, like—”

“Yes,” says Maia. “Yes, but”—she flushes pink—“but don’t stop, or my brain’ll start again.” 

Marissa’s eyebrows dart up. “Okay,” she says. And then there’s very little warning before she’s straddling Maia on the couch, knees on either side of her hips, bruising Maia’s lips with her teeth. 

Marissa’s delightfully solid,  _ port in a storm,  _ and Maia reaches for her hips and tugs her close, closer. Marissa’s A/C has been broken for weeks and a bead of sweat forms in the hollow of Maia’s neck. And honestly, she doesn’t mind. (She wonders if Marissa will lick it.) 

Her hands are just under Marissa’s shirt, just enough to feel her (warm, soft). Marissa pulls back and tugs at Maia’s shirt, asks “Can I take this off?” so frankly that Maia wants to burst out laughing. 

She nods, mouth quirked in a smile, and raises her arms as Marissa tugs her shirt over her head. Appropriately braless for TV and wine night, Maia feels suddenly, absurdly, underdressed. The feeling lasts only until Marissa pulls her own shirt over her head, meets her eyes with a mischievous eyebrow quirk, and leans down to take Maia’s breast into her mouth. 

Maia makes a soft sound and arches into the sensation, Marissa’s mouth, her chest. 

Marissa pulls back, grins. “You good?”

Maia nods, breathless, and surges into Marissa with a clatter of teeth. If she angles her hips just right Marissa can grind against her, eager, humming with satisfaction. Maia is happy to be passive for a while, to be an immovable object to Marissa’s unstoppable force. Marissa’s hands on her breasts, her mouth on her neck—it feels warm and thrilling, like being eighteen again, making out with a girl on a dorm floor because you couldn’t wait long enough to climb to the lofted twin bed. 

Her mind starts racing and, to silence it, she pushes against Marissa’s shoulder, nudging her to shift positions and sit back against the couch. Maia kisses her lips, grins, and kneels before her. “Can I…” Her fingers are playing with the tie on Marissa’s pants. 

Marissa laughs. “Are you kidding? Please, God, eat me out.” 

Maia huffs a laugh in response, rolls her eyes, and slides pants and underwear over Marissa’s thighs, calves, feet. She kisses the top of one of her feet, chastely, and Marissa bursts out laughing. 

“Jesus, don’t tell me you have a foot fetish.”

“I was being sweet!” Maia protests, blustery, feeling her face turn red. 

“Just messing with you.” Marissa knocks Maia in the side of the head with her ankle. 

Maia wants to act indignant, but Marissa’s sitting in front of her naked, bright-eyed. Instead, Maia lays her forearms one on top of the other over Marissa’s knees and rests her chin on them, looking up Marissa’s body. “I want to taste you,” she says, throatier than usual, and Marissa’s body shivers gratifyingly in response. 

Marissa grins. “What are you waiting for?”

Maia’s returning smile is almost involuntary. She reaches for Marissa’s hips to pull her forward, and it feels better than she imagined: the solid warmth of her, the way her flesh gives under Maia’s hands. 

Maia leaves soft open-mouthed kisses along the inside of Marissa’s thigh, relishing in the staccato gasps that Marissa makes in response. 

“Maia…” she breathes. If Maia were a little more self-aggrandizing, she might describe Marissa’s tone as awestruck.

Maia doesn’t waver; she sucks the faintest of marks into Marissa’s inner thigh and then, as Marissa lifts her hips toward Maia’s mouth, she presses down hard on Marissa’s legs to hold her still. She looks up for a moment, an  _ is-this-okay  _ glance, and Marissa lifts her head to make eye contact. Her eyebrows dart up for an instant in surprise and maybe satisfaction.

Maia dips her head, kissing Maia’s thigh again. She tastes briefly, draws back, leans in again for a teasing press of her tongue.

“I am going to fucking murder you,” says Marissa.

Maia finds herself laughing. She squeezes Marissa’s thigh—it feels weirdly friendly as she does it—and then she starts in earnest; Marissa whispers “shit” and then goes silent except for her breath, fast and shallow. It turns into a soft whine as she arches into Maia’s mouth, and then she’s shaking and Maia’s holding onto her and she’s saying  _ fuck, fuck, fuck. _

When Marissa relaxes, Maia sits back on her heels, watching her eyes flutter open again.

“You’re quiet,” she says.

Marissa chuckles apologetically. “This is the first time since moving out that I haven’t had roommates. Still getting used to the idea.”  She nudges Maia. “You going to stay down there?”

“Probably not forever.” Maia leans onto Marissa’s legs again. “Your couch is scratchy. Do you have rug burns?”

Marissa lifts her thigh to inspect it. “Not quite.” She flips her thumb in the direction of the bedroom. “You want to relocate for round two?”

Maia starts to nod, but something in the way Marissa speaks makes her think of Amy and then she’s suddenly on the edge of hysteria, like her reality’s come back all at once and it’s trying to drown her. Instead she shakes her head, eyes closed. “God. I’m sorry, I guess I can only turn my brain off for so long.”

“No, oh my God, you’re fine. Sit down, I’ll put on my pants and we can talk. I’m sorry for leading you adulterously astray.” Marissa looks sheepish, sitting there naked and reaching for her sweatpants.

Maia rolls her eyes, smiling despite herself. “Shut up.” She retrieves her shirt from the floor and holds it in one hand as she says, “I think I should go home. Maybe...deal with some things.”

Marissa nods. “Yeah. Okay.” She swallows. “Is this going to make things weird?”

Maia looks at her evenly. “I hope not,” she says. “I’ll let you know.” 

She turns around as she reaches the door. “I, uh, I might need a place to stay tonight. Depending.”

“Sure,” says Marissa. “I’ll be here.”


End file.
